oneclick 

These brakes came on a Romet Sport - no branding whatsoever.
They're a pretty close copy of the Mafac Racer; vbase has a XB3 clone of the Mafac Competition which bears as strong a resemblance to this copy as the real thing does to its cousin (these aren't in vbase).

There are some differences:
a) the bridge is stamped, not cast/forged
b) no plastic bushings or spring-keepers
c) finish is somewhat cruder - see pics of the centre- and arm-fixing screws
d) plating is also crude; on the spring-arms it was flaked such that they would stick at points; that was fixed by removing it.

The arms were VERY sloppy.
I have some 0.0003" shim stock and cut a set of split sleeves, this was just about perfect, they are smooth and tight now.

One of the pivots would not let go of the fixing screw and started turning in the arm (they are steel studs riveted on the back side).
I drilled a hole across the arm, through the base of the stud, and stuck the shank into the hole and *then* that screw came out.

sd5782 

I have heard of a Russian proverb; “Perfection is the enemy of good enough”, or something to that effect.

bikamper

Owning several Russian Zenit cameras and a Russian Ural sidecar outfit, I am quite familiar with 'Gudenov'. We Ural owners practice WWID, 'What Would Ivan Do?', when it comes to repairs when 'Gudenov' wasn't. Having drilled the hole in the stud to help get the screw out shows you caught on quick.

repechage

Decades after any patents lapse, Paul Components Racers.

chain_whipped

Those husky Ruskies look to do the job well. Reminds me of the crude finished Lambert / Viscount centerpulls but if dialed in, proper tolerance brass bushed and using Kool Stop salmon pads, they're excellent.

bikingshearer 

The version I've always used is: "The perfect is the enemy of the good." A related corollary is that, sometimes, okay today is better than perfect tomorrow. Hell, the entire consumer electronics industry seems to run on that corollary.

abdon 

I think the Soviet era saying that applies is "they pretend to pay us, so we pretend to work".

bikingshearer 

In WWII, three or four B-29s landed in Vladivostok, Russia, after bombing Japan, mainly due to taking flak or fighter damage (Vladivostok was significantly close than the Marianas, the B-29's home base). Because the Soviets were not at war with Japan at the time (and wanted it to stay that way until Germany was finished off), they interned the crews and did not allow them to leave - not quite POWs, but decidedly not free, either. (The same thing happened to at least on of the Doolittle Raid B-25 crews.) They also took the three or four B-29s they had, tore one or two apart, kept at least one as a template, reversed engineered to whole thing, and sometime after the war rolled out their own B-29, the Tupelov Tu-4, the first Russian strategic bomber. So the "Mafacsky" brakes are part of a time-honored tradition.

SkinGriz

I’m pretty sure that’s 80% of employees everywhere.

oneclick 

There's a good story in Charles Sorensen's book about working for Henry Ford.
It's too long to quote entirely, but the essence is this:

In 1928 he was on a trip to Russia to organize the production of Ford cars in plants in that country.
Ford would give them all the information on plant layout and parts manufacture and so on, the Soviets (he uses both terms) got the rights to sell in Russia, Ford got a royalty.
At the end of the trip he was given a tour of various manufacturing works, and in the Pulitov Steel Works they proudly showed him their latest tractor - which he imediately realized was a copy of the Fordson.
And when he started talking to the engineers they started describing problems they were having with reliability.

"It was apparent that, while the Russians had stolen the Fordson tractor design, they did not have any of our specifications for the material that entered into the various parts...In spite of the fact that they had stolen everything they could of the tractor, I offered to help them clear up the whole matter by sending them one of our experts from Dearborn."

iab

The internet attributes the quote to Voltaire, and I'm too lazy to fact check it. But having been in R&D for the last 35 years, it is a mantra. Getting to market first far outweighs the time needed for "perfect", which in the end, doesn't exist.

iab

The other relevant quote, attributed to Picasso, but again, its the internet, "Good artists copy, great artists steal". A direct knock-off won't get you anywhere, but taking an idea, making it your own by adding to it, can make innovation. Think Suntour stealing the parallelogram derailleur and adding a slant versus any NR knock-off.

bikamper

Depending on the story you hear, the Soviets either bought a BMW R71 motorcycle in Switzerland and reverse engineered it for the Ural M72 military motorcycle, or they got the plans and the tooling for the R71 from Germany in exchange for wheat as part of the Ribbentroff(sp, it's too early in the morning)-Molotov treaty. Either could be true. Either could be BS. What isn't BS is that once it became clear that Wermacht was moving on Moscow, the Russians moved production of the M72 to the town of Irbit, out of range of German bombers. The factory was still producing motorcycles until last year, when production was moved to Kazakhstan.

About all I know about the various models of the Zenit 35mm cameras is that if you drop one on your foot, you may end up with a cast.

gugie 

The entire semiconductor industry works on this principle. Many (most?) products ship when yield approaches 50%. When I was working at Intel it was a big deal when one of our fabs in Israel created a wafer with 100% good die.

abdon 

Maybe 80% of the non industrialized world.

Mind you, I'm talking Soviet era, iron curtain and all. This is the time when the government both owned the means of production (your job) and controlled the price of everything you bought.

Bringing this back to cycling; Russian cyclist specially those engaged in the sport side took every opportunity to snuggle as much gear into the country as they could. Derailleurs were particularly coveted. The penalties were stiff but it was the only way to properly outfit pro and semi pro bikes

oneclick 

Took it out for five minutes to see what it's like.

Not light, 11.5kg, but rides nicely, easy no-hands, everything works, the Mafac clones even squeal properly.
Some small bits to do, clips and straps, cable ends, dropout adjuster screws are being straightened, the Shimano logos on the cable outers will disappear, stuff like that.



Even though it was original, the handlebar needed a shim (so did the seatpost, but that's because I didn't have a 25.6 aluminium post - that original was steel.



New Tange headset needed a spacer, - esay when you (ahem) have a lathe...



The Titlist rear mech uses a lot less cable pull than most others, about 30 degrees on the lever gets all five gears.



The yokes of the Mafac copies are steel and so are the hangers, not aluminium or stainless.